Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of her plans to end the Renewable Obligation for onshore wind in 2016 on (a) the date by which onshore wind is expected to reach grid parity and (b) the ability of communities to generate their own power from onshore wind; and if she will make a statement.

Onshore wind has made a valuable contribution to the UK energy mix in recent years but there is now enough capacity in the pipeline to help the UK to meet its 2020 renewable electricity commitments.

DECC publishes estimates of levelised costs of various generation technologies, with projections to 2030. The levelised cost of a particular generation technology is the ratio of the total costs of a generic plant to the total amount of electricity expected to be generated over the plant’s lifetime (per megawatt hour). The latest published figures, including figures for onshore wind, are available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269888/131217_Electricity_Generation_costs_report_December_2013_Final.pdf.

It’s difficult to be certain about the point at which onshore wind will reach grid parity because of, for example, uncertainty on future electricity prices and different costs for different sizes of projects. Our estimate is that some projects may reach parity with wholesale electricity prices in the latter half of this decade or early 2020s, depending on the electricity price scenario used and the speed of cost reductions, as well as characteristics of the individual wind farm.

We are keen that community projects should be able to access a support scheme to help them to deploy small scale renewables and will consider how we can continue to support community wind projects as part of a review of the feed-in tariffs that will be undertaken this year.